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One Piece: As Heavy as a Gale #95
🕑 Added 2025-07-13 10:55:15 +0000 UTCThe Sabaody Archipelago looked like something out of a fever dream—if that fever dream was sponsored by a coral reef and a tourist board with no safety regulations.
It wasn’t made of traditional islands, but rather giant, sky-scraping mangrove trees—the Yarukiman Mangroves—rising like colossi from the ocean’s surface.
Each of the eighty or so numbered groves was its own bubble-popping neighborhood: from lawless zones where pirates openly hawked stolen goods to ritzy districts packed with boutiques, gambling parlors, and restaurants so expensive they charged you for the air.
The trees’ massive roots created natural platforms above the waves, and from each bloomed resin bubbles the size of barrels, floating lazily through the air like jellyfish.
Some groves had theme parks. Others had slave markets. Some had both, which really said everything you needed to know about the moral compass of this place.
And toward that very chaos, skipping across the waves like a flat stone on a good day, came Gale.
With a final hop that sent a ripple through the water, he landed lightly on the edge of Grove 43, his boots tapping down onto the damp wood of the mangrove's surface. He stood still for a second, squinting over his shoulder.
No battleship in sight. Just endless horizon. The escort ship had peeled off immediately after launching him like a glorified delivery package—per his request. Or more like a thinly veiled “suggestion” disguised as a request.
“Guess they didn’t wanna stick around,” Gale muttered, brushing a bit of saltwater off his sleeve. “Or maybe they’re still trying to figure out how I left before the ink on the deployment order dried.”
He adjusted his collar, rolling up the sleeves of his casual shirt. No coat or cap. No uniform. Nothing that screamed “marine.” Just another punk with a sword and a smug face.
His badge and transponder snail were tucked safely into a sealed pouch at his waist—just in case he needed to unofficially call for help or play dumb.
He was here early, which was out of character if anyone back at HQ had to guess. Less than an hour after leaving Sengoku’s office, he was already on the docks looking for a battleship headed this way.
He acted reluctant about the assignment in front of Sengoku, sure. But in truth? He’d been hoping for it. Scheming for it, even. If Sengoku hadn’t sent him, he might’ve just… “accidentally” ended up here anyway.
Sabaody wasn’t just the gateway to the New World. It was the congregation point for pirates, mercenaries, arms dealers, and the worst kinds of nobles. Certain Celestial Dragons liked to make appearances here.
That was exactly why Gale came early. He wasn’t here for sightseeing, even if the massive Ferris wheel on a distant grove was doing a great job of looking inviting.
No—he had business with a Celestial Dragon. The kind of business that involved the Dragon disappearing and everyone else getting blamed for it.
He’d never pull something like that in Mary Geoise. You didn’t sneak around the World Government’s holy city and expect to walk out in one piece.
But Sabaody?
With its chaos, its turnover, its unpredictable mix of thuggery and criminal bureaucracy?
If a Celestial Dragon vanished here… well, blame would be a buffet, and everyone would be grabbing a plate.
“Nothing like a bit of premeditated plausible deniability,” Gale muttered, cracking his knuckles and starting his stroll toward the glowing Ferris wheel spinning cheerfully in the skyline. “Alright. Time to go fishing...”
He grinned to himself.
Let the games begin.
...
Gale sat slouched on a sun-warmed bench in the middle of Sabaody’s famous-yet-definitely-cursed theme park, the faint screams from the roller coasters in the background blending with the cheerful jingle of overpriced food carts.
He was nursing what was supposed to be a churro but tasted suspiciously like sweetened rope dusted with cinnamon.
He stared at the Ferris wheel in the distance—tall, spinning slow and pretty against the skyline like some romantic beacon.
And it made his teeth itch.
“Oh yeah,” he muttered around a mouthful of regret, “nothing says 'family fun' like the fishman kidnapping bait wheel™.”
He squinted at it, chewing like it had personally offended him. And, in a way, it had.
You didn’t need to be a genius to connect the dots. Mermaids went to the surface to see the wheel. Mermaids got nabbed in this area. No giant flashing neon sign was necessary.
It was obvious. Deliberate, even.
He didn’t remember the anime saying that outright—but come on. The vibes were there. Practically radiating from the damn thing.
Gale licked some fake cinnamon off his thumb and frowned.
“Someday I’m just gonna snap, go full Kaiju mode, and toss that thing into the sea…” he murmured, picturing himself towering over Sabaody like an angry god, wrenching the Ferris wheel free from the earth and yeeting it like a discus into the horizon.
The mental image was satisfying.
But—not today.
He sighed and leaned back on the bench, eyes scanning the crowd as they’d been doing for the last two hours. The theme park was perfect for it. Tourists, pirates, locals, bounty hunters, celestial dragon lackeys—Sabaody didn’t discriminate.
The flow of people was constant, colorful, and seedy in all the right places.
He wasn't even sure if he was looking for someone specific. His goal was less “mission” and more “throw bait in the water and wait for a bite.”
That said, he didn't really have bait, and he wasn't going to throw it. He was just waiting for the bait to appear on its own, and for a fish to bite into it.
And then, finally, the bait appeared.
His eyes narrowed on a figure gliding through the crowd.
Covered head to toe in a thick brown cloak, the silhouette was unmistakably feminine… but that wasn’t what drew his attention. It was the movement.
Her body didn’t bounce or shift like someone walking on legs. She just slid across the ground—graceful and eerie, like a ghost on rails. Gale’s eyes dipped to the hem of the cloak. A flash of… a tail? Or was that just the way the fabric moved over a bubble?
He didn’t need confirmation.
“Bingo,” Gale muttered.
But someone else had noticed too.
To his left, a man in a tall feathered cone hat made a quick hand sign.
Down the boardwalk, another man—same dumb hat—subtly nodded and began to move.
Gale’s expression brightened. Finally.
There it was. The system at work. Like rats sniffing out the moment a crumb dropped, the traffickers were on the move. Probably already imagining how many tens of millions they'd get from auctioning her off.
Maybe more if she was a rare species.
“Should’ve brought Poqin,” Gale muttered under his breath, tossing the rest of the churro into a nearby trash bin. “He loves beating people up...”
With a tired sigh, he stood up. His cloak fluttered slightly in the breeze, one hand casually resting on the hilt of Florencio’s sword—hidden beneath the dark fabric but always within reach.
The Ferris wheel wasn't the job he’d come for.
But this?
This was exactly the kind of fishing he had in mind.
...
The man in the feathered cone hat moved with a predator’s ease—shoulders relaxed, posture casual, voice as smooth as butter melting over hot steel.
"Excuse me, miss," he said as he sidled up beside the cloaked figure. “You look a bit lost. First time in Sabaody, huh?”
The mermaid beneath the cloak gave a slight nod, hesitant but not hostile. Her voice was quiet, unsure. “I was… looking for someone.”
“Well now, aren’t we all,” the man chuckled, then leaned in slightly, lowering his voice. “You're a mermaid, right? I know a place where you can wait without attracting the wrong kind of attention, you know?”
Her eyes, hidden beneath the cowl, blinked uncertainly. “Really?”
He smiled, wide and full of false warmth. “Trust me. You’re better off there than floating around this place looking like fresh bait.”
She nodded slowly, and followed.
What she didn’t notice was the man behind the man—Gale, blending in and tailing them with all the subtlety of a shadow at sunset. His steps were unhurried, one hand in his pocket, the other gently brushing aside bystanders as he strolled.
And it always started the same way.
The feather-hat creep led the cloaked mermaid through a twisted alley between bubble-coated buildings, then into the mossy ruins of an old coating station—long abandoned and hidden behind the roots of one of the great mangroves.
A perfect spot: out of sight, easy to trap, and acoustically dead to the world.
She hesitated.
"Are you sure—?"
“Right this way, sweetheart,” the man said.
And then the others appeared—three more figures in feathered hats, melting out of the shadows like rats from a gutter.
That was when she knew.
The mermaid’s body froze, posture suddenly tight and panicked. “W-what do you want from me?”
One of them cracked his knuckles. Another pulled out sea stone shackles from his coat. They didn’t answer her. They didn’t need to.
That was when the sound came—crack.
The loud thwack of something hitting flesh. One of the feathered men dropped like a sack of bricks, eyes rolled back, a circular red welt blossoming on his forehead.
A single Beri coin clinked as it bounced on the cobblestones beside him.
Everyone turned.
Up above, crouched on the crumbling edge of a rusted awning, was Gale—coat fluttering in the humid wind, a handful of coins glinting in his palm like bullets in a gunslinger’s hand.
His eyes sparkled with that brand of mischief that always made people nervous. He tilted his head and grinned.
“You know,” he called down, casually flipping a coin between his fingers, “I was really hoping someone would be dumb enough to make my job easier.”
He flicked the coin up, caught it, and stood.
“So congrats—you're now part of my stress relief routine.”
